What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)

Such a frustrating disappointment

recommended

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I was sitting here reading some reviews and just reading the reviews had me laughing like hell. This movie is the type of thing anyone with a sense of humor wants to do at least once. You take a movie that was probably not bad, may have been funny (some facial expressions and scenarios suggest it) and make it one hell of a farce. Woody Allen's early work was brilliant, off kilter and a bit bizarre. All that is what made it so bloody funny. (Interiors was heartbreaking. BLECH!) He showed comedic genius not just for the 60s, but for all time.Phil Moskowitz is a howl. The villains are a howl. The whole premise is a howl. It has elements that his other movies don't have, or they have and it doesn't. WHAT? Never mind, it's not like his other movies. This is an established movie, DE-established and rebuilt into his own insane image.Not every gag works, but the non-working gags are few, very few. Just watch and LISTEN and you'll laugh, unless you've got no sense of humor.

What attracted me to "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" was seeing Woody Allen working in re-dubbing a foreign film making into a new one. This technique is familiar to me thankful to a 30 minute show who lasted for a short period on MTV and it was really something seeing a unknown film being dubbed for comical purposes and ridiculous scenarios. Allen makes of the "serious" Japanese film called "International Secret Police: Key of Keys" a funny but somewhat tedious and a times uninteresting film where the hero has to go to a lot of trouble to get an special egg salad recipe. Just like many spy flicks this one is very difficult to follow (there's a moment when Woody is asked by a host to explain the film to the viewers to which he replies "No" and the film goes on). This Bond adventure type has some hilarious funny sequences, some good dialogs ,a little bit of action and many histrionic moments where the characters keep making impersonations of Peter Lorre and other classic actors.Quotes like the one in this review title or things like "I'm dying, call my rabbi!" and many others are really funny but the movie doesn't know how to be more hysterical, more interesting. There some slow parts and some jokes that doesn't work nowadays. But Allen had a lot of comical touch to make it a nice film, pretty decent and that can make you laugh at least in one scene. Yeah, the plot is ridiculous but it works well, it's well handled. One of the greatest things "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" features is musical numbers by The Lovin' Spoonful which was included behind Allen's back when the studio felt a need to bump up the running time. Their appearance and the score was really cool, highly funny even though it doesn't have much connection with the plot or anything.Inventive, a little bit original for its time and even more effective than many cheap comedies of the past ten years, this is a good example of Woody Allen many talents as a writer and director and deserves to be seen at least once. Just don't expect the high flies of intellectualism of his future works and you'll find some fun in here. 7/10

MASTER PLAN: must get recipe for egg salad. The premise is simple enough: take a standard movie thriller from Japan and remove the original sound track. Then, dub in your own wacky dialog. This ends up as the most unusual parody of the James Bond-type spy action of the sixties, with Japanese actors of the time voicing silly, inane sentences, usually in an overly silly style. One sinister henchman, for example, speaks in the style of a bad Peter Lorre imitation, way over-the-top. The whole thing is hit-or-miss: if you're really into awful Lorre imitations, you'll probably be giggling; if not, you'll just find that aspect, well, kind of stupid & tiring. A lot of the intended humor stems from just listening to some weird, juvenile guttural sounds or snickering seeming to emanate from the actors on screen; of course, that's the illusion: the actors you see had nothing to do with all the strange noises you hear. So, the main question is how clever was Woody Allen and his 'staff' of voice actors in adding on their interpretations of what passes for funny? It was hit-or-miss, about 50/50. There's also the problem of all those insertions of The Lovin' Spoonful singing for no reason except to fill up time. That doesn't do much for the pace of the film.The film begins with a standard action scene from the original Japanese film and it's not that bad, involving a flame thrower and then a 'lady-in-peril' scene, with some exciting fights. It actually looks like the conclusion of the film. We suddenly switch to Woody Allen, seated in a nice office with an interviewer, as he explains his vision of re-authoring a film. Allen's one big scene is pretty amusing and he pops up briefly later, as well as at the conclusion. The movie itself doesn't make much sense and is hard to follow. The hero, some kind of agent, encounters femme fatales and various villains, all in the pursuit of a code describing the ultimate egg salad recipe. The hero gets into some fights, always yelling stuff like "Saracen Pig!' and 'Spartan Dog!' It may sound funnier than it actually is. He's also good at pulling carpets out from under the feet of bad guys, which may have been funny in the original film, as well. Many of the more clever bits involve the dialog of the villains, who put a very strange spin on some of the threats they make, such as a special camera that takes pictures which removes the clothes from the subjects. The ending has some genuine thrills. The main connection to the Bond films, however, is that two of the actresses here also appeared in "You Only Live Twice" a couple of years later. Hero:6 Villains:7 Femme Fatales:6 Henchmen:5 Fights:7 Stunts/Chases:5 Gadgets:3 Auto:4 Locations:7 Pace:6 overall:6

We have gotten used to Woody Allen films of the present day, most of which are a little more cerebral than WUTL but when this first hit the screens I thought it was hilarious. Nobody had seen anything like it and it struck a chord with those with an appreciation of the absurd. And what could be more absurd that running around looking for the perfect egg salad recipe with surprise musical interludes from the Lovin' Spoonful? It's all pretty ridiculous but somehow it worked at the time and still does......at least for some of us.There are some great quotes from this film that rival those from Monty Python films/TV programs. And I'm a Monty Python fan.I probably could have done without the China Lee strip-tease and frankly the Lovin' Spoonful as well.....but who could not love the zany Phil Moscowitz, Wing Fool,you Fat, who loves Phil in his own way, and Sheppard Wong who does not have the body of a killer. And if the movie appears dated, it's only because we have Airplane, and the Austin Powers films in more recent times which have refined the approach to this type of craziness.Granted, WUTL is an acquired taste but it may be worth a watch to see the precursor to the MST3K type of humor......and don't forget the mayonnaise!!